Working in an IT environment one finds that the industry is awash with buzzwords and acronyms – one of which is SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, another of which is cloud computing. Before discussing ways a company can improve its SEO by using cloud computing, it is worth making sure that the key terms are clearly defined.
Search Engine Optimisation and the Cloud
According to my friend, who runs Dominate With SEO, a business looking to boost their SEO is essentially searching for ways to make their website appear as close to the top of as many search engine (Google, Bing etc) keyword searches as possible.
Meanwhile, a cloud provider will host server space remotely for businesses or personal use, meaning that the need for servers at home or in the office is greatly reduced. Anyone who uses Twitter, Facebook, or an email provider such as Hotmail or Google is very much a cloud user.
So, we know what we’re talking about, how then can cloud computing be used to boost a site’s SEO?
Research Keywords
The best way to get people to visit your site is to succinctly summarise your message in a word, or a couple of words. Think about which words you would use if you were to search for your site and see how popular they are using tools like Google AdWords Keywords Tool which are hosted remotely within the cloud.
Use a limited number of keywords, to minimise your chances of being flagged as spam and make sure they are fairly ambiguous – as you want to reach as many people as possible, using keywords that no-one thinks of is self-defeating.
Analyse Traffic
By analysing the traffic to your website through a tool such as Google Analytics, a webmaster is able to monitor who visited their site and how they were brought to any particular page – was it a keyword search, or through a link on another site? Is there one particular demographic which visits their site more than another?
Information like this is invaluable for anyone seeking to optimise their SEO. It allows them to use analysis from the cloud to improve and adjust the focus of their site quickly and simply to reach the widest possible audience.
Socialise
A quick and easy way to reach a wider audience is to have a presence on various social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Updates to your website can appear instantaneously on your Facebook or Twitter feed with a link to the update for your friends and followers to click on.
Additionally, building a widget into your site that allows visitors to share a page they like with their own followers on Facebook, Twitter or perhaps Pintrest is not only very simple, but well worthwhile. Once someone has posted a link to your site on their timelines, it is in the cloud for good.
Content Is King
By adding fresh relevant content to your site on a regular and consistent basis you will be likely to improve your SEO two-fold. Not only by having returning visitors, but by also increasing the potential for hits through more keyword searches on search engines.
Make sure that the URL to individual pages on your site contains the relevant keywords for the information upon it. Search engines begin scanning for keywords at the top of each page. The sooner they appear, the more likely your page is to appear on the first page of results.
By following these simple and free tips, you will immediately see an improvement in your SEO resulting in more people seeing your site ahead of competitors’ more often.
Do you have any other ways in which working with cloud computing can improve your SEO? Let us know in the comments below.
About the Author: John Rogers works for an IT solutions provider and writes for ConnetU about cloud computing.
Image by Connetu
